5 Board Games for Food Lovers

When natural disasters threaten our power supply–as they’ve been doing often lately, it seems–they threaten our access to the Angry Birds, Words with Friends, and the rich collection of divertissement we call The Internet. So we’ve eyed our board game collections with a little more interest in the past few weeks. Luckily a new crop of games aimed at food and wine lovers offers a wealth of unplugged ways to celebrate gustatory delights. Here’s a taste.

Foodie FightThink Trivial Pursuit for folks who worship atthe alter of Anthony Bourdain. This game tests your knowledge ofeverything from exotic cuisine and molecular gastronomy to celebritychefs and Michelin-starred restaurants. Show off the number of hours you’ve clocked watching Food Network by blazing through over 1,000 food questions, and see which ofyour epicurean friends truly gets served. (Chronicle Books, $22.95at chroniclebooks.com. Also look for Foodie Fight Rematch, out onNovember 2 and available now for preorder.)

A Taste for Wine and Murder This murder mystery game goes beyond cheesy names and Clue-esque scenarios. (Though, we’re pretty thrilled about the characters “Marilyn Merlot” and “Tara Misu.”) In addition to scripts and clues for each character, there is also an entire menu attached to the game, including recipes and a shopping list. Though, after a night of wine and cheese–and like we said, we’re not just talking about the food–we might choose to veer off of their menu suggestions. (University Games, $19.95; available for purchase at areyougame.com. Also available: Pasta, Passion, and Pistols Murder Mystery Party)

WinerdLike a nice French wine, this game’s name is hard to pronounce. (Wine + nerd = winerd. Got it?) Amateur sommeliers can test their prowess with a three-glass tasting to jump around the board with a colored cork. Before you roll the dice, a trivia question has to be answered. But even if you roll sixes, it won’t help you if you can’t distinguish a Merlot from a Shiraz because blind taste-and-identify spaces are like minefields along the way. (Releasing on September 14 on Chronicle Books; $35 for preorder at chroniclebooks.com. Also available: Wine Wars trivia, $19.95)

Scrabble: Cooking EditionThat’s right nerds, the foodie edition of Scrabble gives you bonus points for cooking-related words! So put down Merriam Webster, pick up a copy of the Food Lover’s Companion, and get your study on. The game also has recipe cards offering advantages each round and tiny reusable shopping bags from which you’ll draw your tiles. Adorable. (USAopoly, $29.99; available for purchase at amazon.com)

WASABI!If you love sushi but don’t have the time to perfect the art at home, try rolling a la card–ingredient cards, that is. WASABI! tests your knowledge of sushi ingredients, ranging from the simple California roll (avocado, cucumber, crab, and rice) to the more complex poison pill roll (blowfish, eel, crab, yellowtail, and rice) by asking you to assemble ingredient tiles to build the correct combinations. (Z-Man games, $39.99 at zmangames.com)